Student borrower looks for a job.
Jonathan Alcorn | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Mary O’Mara is worried about her son.
Every day the 27-year-old comes home from his job as a supervisor at a big-box retailer and heads right to his bedroom. He doesn’t emerge until the morning. “He just sleeps,” O’Mara, 62, said. “He’s so depressed.”
That’s because his life wasn’t supposed to unfold this way.
At Rutgers University, he majored in marine science and minored in environmental protection policy. On internships, he traveled to Barbados and fought to protect turtles from poachers; in Key West, Florida, he nursed sick dolphins back to health. “From a child, he loved the ocean,” O’Mara said. “He’s a really smart kid.”
When he graduated college, he was offered a position in Florida, training dolphins. He was thrilled — until he saw his monthly student loan bill. It was more than $1,000.
Instead of following his dreams, he now works as a supermarket manager (where he makes a higher salary than he would…
